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Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

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Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#91

Post by jdashg »

bigbubba wrote: post #42
horsawlarway wrote: post #6

I'm not really sure there's a good answer here. Fuel tax is 43 cents a litre. Australian cars right now avg about 13.1 litres per 100km. So you're looking at ~$5.6 per 100km for fuel tax. This tax is adding $2.5 tax per 100km for electric. Right now, EVs are absolutely creating an regressive tax situation with regards to fuel. Those who can afford to buy newer, efficient cars can usually save money on tax over those…

Taxing milage directly seems to have worse distribution properties than taxing gas. Here is what I mean: Suppose I am driving from New York to Alaska; I fill up my car with gas then drive into Ontario. I have now paid New York a gas tax but I'm driving on Ontario roads; Ontario gets paid nothing for this wear and tear.. until I run out of gas inside Ontario. Then Ontario gets their cut. This continues all the way unt…

Is this a problem big enough to be worth solving?

There are places in the US where people live in no-income-tax states but shop across the border on no-sales-tax states. This is obviously an abuse, but it's never been enough of a problem to really crack down on.

If we can reduce our problems to known problems that aren't a big deal, that's good enough! Ship it!

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#92

Post by mcguire »

gambiting wrote: post #75
horsawlarway wrote: post #6

I'm not really sure there's a good answer here. Fuel tax is 43 cents a litre. Australian cars right now avg about 13.1 litres per 100km. So you're looking at ~$5.6 per 100km for fuel tax. This tax is adding $2.5 tax per 100km for electric. Right now, EVs are absolutely creating an regressive tax situation with regards to fuel. Those who can afford to buy newer, efficient cars can usually save money on tax over those…

"Australian cars right now avg about 13.1 litres per 100km" Wait, that can't be true. That's an insane number if correct. Here in EU a car that averages 7-8L/100km is considered to have poor fuel economy. My previous car was a Mercedes AMG that over 4 years averaged 12L/100km and that was considered absolutely abysmal by everyone, people were wondering how I can afford the fuel for it. And you're telling me that the…

For USians, that's 18 mpg. Low, but not horrible for some trucks and large SUVs.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#93

Post by jdashg »

donaltroddyn wrote: post #66
adrianN wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're probably accurate to within less than 10%. How many kilometers would you have to drive to save a dollar from slightly bigger tyres?

I was being slightly facetious in referencing tyre size, although people regularly have to adjust speedo/odometers by 10% or more when fitting large tyres on off-roaders. Odometers can have their values changed at will, at least in ICE vehicles, often for valid reasons.

Fudging do numbers illicitly is already a huge no-no in the US.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#94

Post by blendo »

mtgx wrote: post #10
jdhn wrote: post #9

I don't understand the opposition to this. These vehicles continue to use roads but don't pay any taxes that would help maintain roads if they were gas or diesel cars. How is that fair?

Trucks do...wait for it...1,400x more damage to roads than standard passenger vehicles do.

We could put the tax on each tire. $1 per tire for a Miata, $100 per tire for an 18-wheeler. Just look at the tire load rating.

Also, tax based on tire speed rating, to capture the 0.5 m v^2 energy.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#95

Post by Gibbon1 »

bigbubba wrote: post #42
horsawlarway wrote: post #6

I'm not really sure there's a good answer here. Fuel tax is 43 cents a litre. Australian cars right now avg about 13.1 litres per 100km. So you're looking at ~$5.6 per 100km for fuel tax. This tax is adding $2.5 tax per 100km for electric. Right now, EVs are absolutely creating an regressive tax situation with regards to fuel. Those who can afford to buy newer, efficient cars can usually save money on tax over those…

Taxing milage directly seems to have worse distribution properties than taxing gas. Here is what I mean: Suppose I am driving from New York to Alaska; I fill up my car with gas then drive into Ontario. I have now paid New York a gas tax but I'm driving on Ontario roads; Ontario gets paid nothing for this wear and tear.. until I run out of gas inside Ontario. Then Ontario gets their cut. This continues all the way unt…

I remember a comment on HN that said the authors city analyzed license plate reader data to find out who was driving on the cities roads. 80% of the drivers were from out of town. The annoying thing about that, unlike highways much of the funding for residential and commercial roads is paid for by local taxes.

When I think about transportation I think about a paper I read about development of rail. The US and UK's experience is you run into market failure with private rail. The broad based benefits and network effects are diffuse, too many people and businesses benefit indirectly. Which means you can't charge high enough fares to pay for a optimal system.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#96

Post by oh_sigh »

Lammy wrote: post #59
jdhn wrote: post #9

I don't understand the opposition to this. These vehicles continue to use roads but don't pay any taxes that would help maintain roads if they were gas or diesel cars. How is that fair?

Probably a lot of Tesla owners on here upset at the thought of losing any of the privilege it brings. Full EVs do more damage to the road than ICE vehicles since they’re a lot heavier. I’m totally pro-EV, but we should definitely pay some part of the tax necessary to maintain the roads we drive on. Some quick searches show: Mazda MX-5 Miata MY2020 base curb weight: 2403lbs Toyota Prius MY2020 base curb weight: 3010lb…

A 4 door luxury sedan would be a better comparison. For example, an Audi A4 has a 3700 lbs curb weight.

Also, since road damage scales at something like axle weight ^ 4th, balance issues could completely override the 300 lbs difference in mass.

For example, if the Tesla 3 can have 2 axles each with 2036 lbs/axle (because there is no ICE weighing down the front), it could theoretically be less damaging to roads than an ICE that has one heavy axle and one light axle.

22036^4 = (x 3700)^4 + ((1-x) * 3700)^4. Solving for x = 63%, so if more than 63% of an Audi A4s weight is on the front axle, it will be approximately worse than a balanced Tesla 3 for road wear and tear.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#97

Post by ggreer »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #25
Causality1 wrote: post #12

Road taxes should be directly proportional to how much wear a vehicle causes to the road. That ranges to effectively zero for bikes and pedestrians to dozens of times as much as a car for eighteen-wheelers.

This sounds fair except that trucks perform an essential service. Heavy taxation of the trucking industry just raises the price of food and other necessities.

Shipping is important but current trucks aren’t the only way to transport goods. Taxing vehicles based on their road wear would incentivize the industry to move to smaller trucks that don’t cause as much damage to roads.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#98

Post by Scoundreller »

bigbubba wrote: post #42
horsawlarway wrote: post #6

I'm not really sure there's a good answer here. Fuel tax is 43 cents a litre. Australian cars right now avg about 13.1 litres per 100km. So you're looking at ~$5.6 per 100km for fuel tax. This tax is adding $2.5 tax per 100km for electric. Right now, EVs are absolutely creating an regressive tax situation with regards to fuel. Those who can afford to buy newer, efficient cars can usually save money on tax over those…

Taxing milage directly seems to have worse distribution properties than taxing gas. Here is what I mean: Suppose I am driving from New York to Alaska; I fill up my car with gas then drive into Ontario. I have now paid New York a gas tax but I'm driving on Ontario roads; Ontario gets paid nothing for this wear and tear.. until I run out of gas inside Ontario. Then Ontario gets their cut. This continues all the way unt…

> Suppose I am driving from New York to Alaska; I fill up my car with gas then drive into Ontario. I have now paid New York a gas tax but I'm driving on Ontario roads; Ontario gets paid nothing for this wear and tear.. until I run out of gas inside Ontario. Then Ontario gets their cut. This continues all the way until I reach Alaska.

It works roughly like this for trucks through the “International Fuel Tax Agreement”. Like the “World Series”, its international because it applies to Canada and US:

https://www.google.com/search?q=international+fuel+tax+agree...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fuel_Tax_Agree...

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#99

Post by gambiting »

0xfaded wrote: post #89
gambiting wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Australian cars right now avg about 13.1 litres per 100km" Wait, that can't be true. That's an insane number if correct. Here in EU a car that averages 7-8L/100km is considered to have poor fuel economy. My previous car was a Mercedes AMG that over 4 years averaged 12L/100km and that was considered absolutely abysmal by everyone, people were wondering how I can afford the fuel for it. And you're telling me that the…

1. Ford Ranger 2. Toyota Hilux 3. Toyota Rav4 4. Hyundai i30 5. Mazda CX5 6. Toyota Land Cruiser 13.1L/100km seems pretty good in context.

Does it? In Europe you would only have something like the Hilux, RAV4 or the Land Cruiser with a diesel engine, and then maybe on a bad day they would average 8L/100km. More like 5-6L/100km in normal use. I imagine if those were fitted with a big petrol engine then those numbers would explode, but then the idea of a big work truck fitted with anything other than a diesel just seems wasteful.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#100

Post by Scoundreller »

jdashg wrote: post #91
bigbubba wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxing milage directly seems to have worse distribution properties than taxing gas. Here is what I mean: Suppose I am driving from New York to Alaska; I fill up my car with gas then drive into Ontario. I have now paid New York a gas tax but I'm driving on Ontario roads; Ontario gets paid nothing for this wear and tear.. until I run out of gas inside Ontario. Then Ontario gets their cut. This continues all the way unt…

Is this a problem big enough to be worth solving? There are places in the US where people live in no-income-tax states but shop across the border on no-sales-tax states. This is obviously an abuse, but it's never been enough of a problem to really crack down on. If we can reduce our problems to known problems that aren't a big deal, that's good enough! Ship it!

They’ve cracked down on it online. eBay now collects sales taxes on all US sales.

As a Canadian, I can’t offer my items as “no tax” if I include US as a shipping destination.

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